Spain’s Robin Hood mayor steals with immunity

Spain's Robin Hood mayor steals with immunity

Just what Spain needs at the moment: a self-declared communist Robin Hood who loots from whoever he wants and gives to the poor. Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo is the mayor of Marinaleda, population 2,600. With the country on the brink of financial meltdown, he has assigned himself the task of redistributing the goods. Recently he led a group of workers into a series of supermarkets to liberate food (without paying) and hand it out to local food banks.

“In this time of crisis, when they are expropriating the people, we want to expropriate the expropriators, namely, the landowners, banks and big retailers,” he told the Green Left Weekly, which predictably treats him as a hero.

“This crisis has its own hangmen and those are the bankers. Well, I say; let’s throw them in jail now for the destruction of so many lives, for stealing and robbing.
“No jail is too good for them, we should just hang them.”

What makes this especially handy is that Sanchez Gordillo, as an elected member of the regional parliament, has immunity from prosecution. So he can steal at will. About a quarter of Spaniards are out of work, so he’s playing tio a willing audiencve. But not evceryone is impressed:

“You can’t be Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham,” said Alfonso Alonso, spokesman for the ruling People’s Party (PP) in the national Parliament. “This man is just searching for publicity at the cost of everyone else.”